The summer sun is fading as the year grows old

Hmm. Is there a word for this? Here is the catalyst.

No one would have believed that as humanity panicked over climate change, a power immeasurably superior to them was slowly and surely, sunspot by sunspot, programming an ice age into the climate system while they worried over an atmospheric trace gas.https://t.co/ewStfsgJn0 pic.twitter.com/hz1dROWErf

— Pure Climate Skeptic (@Carbongate) March 14, 2019

Don't focus on the underlying argument. It is that opening:

No one would have believed that as humanity panicked over climate change, a power immeasurably superior to them was slowly and surely, sunspot by sunspot, programming an ice age into the climate system while they worried over an atmospheric trace gas.

Somber, portentous.

It echoes a passage from something. Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham? Something from Hitchhiker's Guide to Galaxy, perhaps?

The phenomenon is that I am not trying to remember a word or a quoted passage. It is the cadence of the passage, the feel of it. I am sure somewhere in the field of linguistics there is a very specific word for the phenomenon.

But it is like corn between the teeth. What is the passage?

Finally, I think I have it. I think it is somewhere in Jeff Wayne's musical version of H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds, sung by Justin Hayward and narrated by Richard Burton.

Perhaps this passage by Burton,

The steamer began to move slowly away but on the landward horizon appeared the silhouette of a fighting machine. Another came, and another, striding over hills and trees, plunging far out to sea and blocking the exit of the steamer. Between them lay the silent, grey Ironclad "Thunder Child". Slowly it moved towards shore; then, with a deafening roar and whoosh of spray, it swung about and drove at full speed towards the waiting Martians...

Double click to enlarge.

The segment from 20-50 seconds in.

Or perhaps it is this passage in Autumn Leaves:

Never before in the history of the world,
Had such a mass of human beings moved and suffered together.
This was no disciplined march, it was a stampede,
Without order and without a goal, six million people unarmed and unprovisioned driving headlong.
It was the beginning of the rout of civilization, of the massacre of mankind.

Actually, I think that is what is being sparked by the tweet. From 5:20-5:50 on this recording.


Double click to enlarge.

I was very taken with the opening passages of the song when I was much younger. I was a big fan of the Moody Blues and this was one of Hayward's more striking performances after they broke up.

The summer sun is fading as the year grows old,
And darker days are drawing near,
The winter winds will be much colder,
Now you're not here.

I watch the birds fly south across the autumn sky
And one by one they disappear,
I wish that I was flying with them
Now you're not here.
Like the sun through the trees you came to love me,
Like a leaf on a breeze you blew away...

Through autumn's golden gown we used to kick our way,
You always loved this time of year
Those fallen leaves lie undisturbed now
'Cause you're not here
'Cause you're not here
'Cause you're not here